Another observation I have had is that there seem to be a large number of poly people who are gamers, (rpg's or mmo's), or who are members of alternative religions,(pagan or new age for example). Is this because these things require a person to think outside of the box or is there some other underlying commonality?

Oooo, good point! All three of us are gamers (though I'm not much of a video gamer- FPS make me dizzy!) and we have an ex-JW, ex-Catholic, and ex-Baptist among us, so we're all practiced at throwing off some of the conditioning we got as kids.

We're all big sci-fi geeks too. I was a Heinlein fan LONG before I ever learned the word "polyamorous".